Whip use in horse racing is a very controversial issue; their use has increasingly become an animal welfare concern. Whip use, which is widely believed to cause a horse to run faster, is a form of positive punishment which may result in a fear response. Positive punishment is one of four principles that make up equine learning theory, and means adding (“positive”) an unpleasant stimulant (“punishment”) to dissuade the horse from exhibiting an undesirable behaviour (such as losing speed or running slowly). Other research has shown that animals trained using punishment actually learn and respond slower than animals trained with reinforcement (pleasant stimuli).
Concern mainly lies in the excessive use of the whip on the racehorses; when used with enough repetitions and with enough force, whips can leave welts on a horse’s body. Using whips as a method of urging horses to run faster may have negative psychological effects on them, as well.
Regulations in all horse racing organizations dictate how often and where on the horse’s body the whip can be used in a race. Some countries have even completely banned the use of whips, with no apparent detriment to the country’s racing industry.